Part 5 — Whose Name Gets Remembered? The Politics of Memory and the Erasure of Workers
History is not just a record of what happened.
History is a record of what was chosen to be remembered.
Buildings rise.
Bridges span rivers.
Cities grow skyward.
But once the ribbon is cut and the cameras flash, something disturbing happens:
the people who built it disappear.
Their names vanish from plaques.
Their stories fade from newspapers.
Their communities struggle for recognition.
Meanwhile, the names that do get remembered belong to:
- wealthy financiers
- political leaders
- corporations
- landowners
- developers
- government officials
This chapter is about that imbalance — and why it matters.
🏛️ The Plaque Problem: Who Gets Credit?
Look at almost any monument or public structure, and the plaque will say something like:
“This project was completed under the leadership of Mayor ____ and funded by the ____ family.”
But the plaque does not say:
- who lifted the steel
- who carved the stone
- who mixed the concrete
- who laboured in the sun
- who died on the job
- who created the artwork
- which communities provided the skilled trades
- who risked everything because they needed work
Why?
Because plaques are not written by workers.
They are written by people in power.
And power always remembers itself.
🧰 The Work That Makes the World Possible
Modern society depends on invisible labour:
- construction workers
- immigrant labourers
- Indigenous tradespeople
- artists
- welders
- electricians
- stonecutters
- sculptors
- maintenance teams
No building exists without them.
No city thrives without them.
Yet history elevates the “visionaries” while ignoring the hands that executed the vision.
This isn’t accidental.
It’s structural.
📚 Whose Stories Get Written Into Textbooks?
When we look at school textbooks or tourist brochures, the stories focus on:
- inventors
- architects
- CEOs
- government officials
- military figures
- land barons
But where are:
- the Chinese labourers who built the CPR?
- the Mohawk skywalkers who built the Empire State Building?
- the Italian stonecutters who shaped Vancouver’s heritage?
- the Japanese gardeners who built early BC communities?
- the South Asian millworkers who kept the lumber industry alive?
- the Mexican labourers who built railways and agricultural economies?
- the Indigenous workers who toiled without recognition?
These absences are not oversight — they are erasure.
🔎 Why Erasure Happens: The Hard Truth
There are four reasons this erasure is so widespread:
1. Racism
Indigenous, Black, Asian, Mexican, and immigrant labourers were not considered “worthy” of historical recognition.
2. Classism
Working-class people were seen as replaceable and unimportant.
3. Capitalism
Corporations wanted credit to build their legacy, not the workers who made their wealth possible.
4. Control of Narrative
Those who hold power shape public memory.
Those who do the labour rarely have the means to preserve their own stories.
🕊️ The Cost of Being Forgotten
Erasure isn’t just emotional.
It has real consequences:
- fewer statues of Indigenous and immigrant creators
- fewer jobs in heritage fields
- less funding for community museums
- less recognition in labour history
- fewer stories passed down to children
- communities losing pride in their contributions
When people are erased from history, they are erased from belonging
🔥 A Call to Action: Remember the Builders
Here’s what we can do:
1. Name the workers.
Whenever we talk about a building or bridge, name the labourers — not just the architects.
2. Support community history projects.
Small museums and archives preserve the stories that official history ignores.
3. Challenge the plaque narrative.
Ask who is missing.
Ask whose hands built the project.
4. Teach children the full truth.
Let them know their city was shaped by many cultures, many nations, many workers.
5. Keep telling stories.
History stays alive through storytelling, blogging, art, and community memory.
Your series is now part of that movement.
✨ Conclusion: The True Legacy
Buildings may touch the sky, but it’s people who lift them there.
Immigrants.
Indigenous workers.
Artists.
Masons.
Labourers.
Mothers and fathers who needed income.
Communities that sent their best into dangerous jobs.
Workers whose names we say now, loudly, unapologetically.
This is their legacy.
This is their world.
And it’s time history reflects that.
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